T
twoangels
Guest
I guess I’m just looking for words of encouragement and maybe hope.
My husband has bipolar disorder. The vast majority of the time, he’s great. I enjoy his company a lot. He’s easy to talk to. He’s got great ideas and principals. Of the flaws he has, they’re true about me as well. If it were just those issues, I’d say a lifetime of growing in virtues for both of us would suffice.
He’s always been good with taking his medication, and to be honest, when I read about bipolar disorder, so much of that doesn’t actually fit with our situation. He’s far more stable than that, so I know his medication is working and I’ve never seen what he could be like when off of his medication.
The problem is, our entire marriage has been full of stressful situations since its started. Even my in-laws says we’ve experienced an amazingly higher than average number of stressors since we’ve married. I mean we took a test on stressers and for almost 4 years now, the stressful events in our life has been so common that the tests say we are in danger of getting physically sick because of it all.
So I suppose I should give credit for my husband handling everything as well as he does. Still, throughout our marriage, my husband has tended to become irrationally angry. It was happening once every few months. He could never figure out what he was upset about him. He thinks I’m attacking him and he starts trying to argue with me about the craziest things: “Sheets and blankets are the exact same thing. Don’t tell me they’re different. You’re a liar!” I mean its weird stuff like that. Its a phase where my silence and any words are say are taken as a personal criticism of him.
We did discover that he had acute sleep apnea which may have been part of the triggers. Apparently when he was unmedicated, he’d stay awake unable to fall asleep for days. But more since this fall, he’s been suddenly in the longest period of depression I’ve seen him in. He’s been having anxiety attacks throughout the day, sometimes at work. Its been effecting his work and at night he’s having difficulty falling asleep. The longer it takes him, the more he panics about how he’s going to be able to work the next day.
And because of all this he’s more irritable than he’s been in the past.
At this point, I’ve taken over all the household chores. I go to bed with him each night because he says when I stay up past him, he can’t fall asleep. I let him occassionally skip out at going to Mass if he’s in one of his irritable moods because if he forces himself to go, he typically starts verbally attacking me for no reason on the way to Mass or back home.
I’ve talked with his parents, and they are very supportive. If we need money, they’re there to help. If I need a place to go, they are there. We’ve also been trying to rethink work. We suggested to him that maybe I should work full time while he shifts to part-time till he gets a better mental handle on things. He doesn’t want to do this though. He says he’s not that bad yet. He hates it when I refer to his verbal attacks as abuse. He says he shouldn’t do it, but he feels like I make him sound worse than he is.
He’s agreed to go to counseling with me, so that’s good. Neither one of us want to break up our marriage. But every time I do a search online about dealing with such attacks, every website tells me that it can’t change, and that I need to leave. I mean, the sites all seem to insist that abusers aren’t willing to go to counciling, but he is. I do know he is hesitant to have a major medication change. He says he’s gone through every combination there is, so this is it and everything else he insists won’t work. So yeah, he’s good with medication but he’s very insistent on sticking to what he’s been on since before I met him.
We are having our first appointment with a Catholic therapist next month (after the Holidays). Am I putting false hope that this could help? Is there hope?
My husband has bipolar disorder. The vast majority of the time, he’s great. I enjoy his company a lot. He’s easy to talk to. He’s got great ideas and principals. Of the flaws he has, they’re true about me as well. If it were just those issues, I’d say a lifetime of growing in virtues for both of us would suffice.
He’s always been good with taking his medication, and to be honest, when I read about bipolar disorder, so much of that doesn’t actually fit with our situation. He’s far more stable than that, so I know his medication is working and I’ve never seen what he could be like when off of his medication.
The problem is, our entire marriage has been full of stressful situations since its started. Even my in-laws says we’ve experienced an amazingly higher than average number of stressors since we’ve married. I mean we took a test on stressers and for almost 4 years now, the stressful events in our life has been so common that the tests say we are in danger of getting physically sick because of it all.
So I suppose I should give credit for my husband handling everything as well as he does. Still, throughout our marriage, my husband has tended to become irrationally angry. It was happening once every few months. He could never figure out what he was upset about him. He thinks I’m attacking him and he starts trying to argue with me about the craziest things: “Sheets and blankets are the exact same thing. Don’t tell me they’re different. You’re a liar!” I mean its weird stuff like that. Its a phase where my silence and any words are say are taken as a personal criticism of him.
We did discover that he had acute sleep apnea which may have been part of the triggers. Apparently when he was unmedicated, he’d stay awake unable to fall asleep for days. But more since this fall, he’s been suddenly in the longest period of depression I’ve seen him in. He’s been having anxiety attacks throughout the day, sometimes at work. Its been effecting his work and at night he’s having difficulty falling asleep. The longer it takes him, the more he panics about how he’s going to be able to work the next day.
And because of all this he’s more irritable than he’s been in the past.
At this point, I’ve taken over all the household chores. I go to bed with him each night because he says when I stay up past him, he can’t fall asleep. I let him occassionally skip out at going to Mass if he’s in one of his irritable moods because if he forces himself to go, he typically starts verbally attacking me for no reason on the way to Mass or back home.
I’ve talked with his parents, and they are very supportive. If we need money, they’re there to help. If I need a place to go, they are there. We’ve also been trying to rethink work. We suggested to him that maybe I should work full time while he shifts to part-time till he gets a better mental handle on things. He doesn’t want to do this though. He says he’s not that bad yet. He hates it when I refer to his verbal attacks as abuse. He says he shouldn’t do it, but he feels like I make him sound worse than he is.
He’s agreed to go to counseling with me, so that’s good. Neither one of us want to break up our marriage. But every time I do a search online about dealing with such attacks, every website tells me that it can’t change, and that I need to leave. I mean, the sites all seem to insist that abusers aren’t willing to go to counciling, but he is. I do know he is hesitant to have a major medication change. He says he’s gone through every combination there is, so this is it and everything else he insists won’t work. So yeah, he’s good with medication but he’s very insistent on sticking to what he’s been on since before I met him.
We are having our first appointment with a Catholic therapist next month (after the Holidays). Am I putting false hope that this could help? Is there hope?
